Lost And Never Found
by Charmina
Summary: Tag to Mystery Spot. "He had changed and he was never going back."


Disclaimer // I don't own Supernatural and I'm not making any profit on this.

Author Notes // Yes, I know, there are about a million tags to Mystery Spot but I just had to make one for myself. There was too little angst wrapping up the end so I had to fill in the blanks

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**Lost And Never F****ound**

_I was me, but now he is gone_

_Metallica – Fade to black_

It did not feel right. Staring out of the passenger-side window Sam tried to find a better position, tried to stretch his long legs, but nothing helped. It was not right. This was not his seat anymore.

He flashed a quick look over at Dean – told himself that it was not to check that his brother was still alive – and felt a pang in his heart. Dean was here, had been here for over a day now, but it was not the same anymore. Three whole months he had been without his brother, lived on even though he had felt his heart break, and it had left wounds the he did not think would ever heal. He was not the same guy as he had been before.

He shifted in his seat again and stared out at the road ahead. Dean had always been his guardian, the one that always had his back and kept him safe, and when Sam had lost that he had been forced to change in more ways then one. He had told Dean once that if he was to survive without his brother he would have to change, to become more like Dean, but as it turned out that had not been enough.

In hindsight he thought that it should scare him but it did not. He had been empty, worked on autopilot, killed people without a second thought and that was not like him. He was supposed to be the one that cared, that saw the grey areas and questioned things but he had been lost without his brother there to protect him and so he had turned it all of. But all that time – in those few moments when he had allowed himself to believe that he would get Dean back – he had thought that he would go back to normal once again when it was all over. Maybe he had been naïve, maybe it had been the only way for him to survive, but he knew better know. He had changed and he was never going back.

And that made everything so different now. For three months he had been the one driving, the one that picked the destination and it was hard to be seated on the passenger-side again. And there were so many other things, small things that bothered him when they really should not, like the mess in the trunk, the music on the stereo, his brothers insistent tapping on the wheel and the smell of old trash in the backseat. He should be used to this after so many years riding shotgun with his brother but three months without it and it all suddenly felt so wrong.

For three months he had been the perfect killing-machine and because of that his habits had changed. He could not afford the extra second it took to locate a stake when a vampire was heading for his throat and there was no one else there to cover his back. And it had been so much easier to function without the constant drum of heavy-metal blaring through the speakers, never mind that it reminded him too much of his brother.

Feeling a headache approaching Sam rubbed at his forehead and tried to stop his mind from going in to overdrive. He wished he could stop all these thoughts from racing around in his head because it really did not do him any good.

"You alright?"

Sam sighed and wondered how long it would take to readjust to having his over-protective brother back. "Yeah," he said and ran his hand through his hair.

"You sure? 'Cause you really don't look that good."

"I'm fine," Sam said and met his brother's eye for a second before he turned away again, trying to stop all the repressed emotions from coming up to the surface. "Just tired."

He felt Dean's eyes on him as he shifted in his seat and pretended that he was trying to sleep. He could not deal with Dean's questions right now, knew he was still too shaken to be able to avoid them and smooth over the topics that he did not want to discuss, and he hoped his brother could take the hint and not press further.

He relaxed again as he felt Dean turning back to the road. He wished that they would stop soon, find some half-way decent motel to crash in for the night, because he did not know how many more hours trapped in this car he could take. He had gotten used to have his space and, even though he was ecstatic to have his brother back, he found it difficult to deal.

"You gonna tell me what's wrong anytime soon?"

Sam started and threw his brother a confused look. "What?"

Dean's face was grim, his jaw clenched and his fingers gripping the wheel white-knuckled. Sam recognised the danger immediately and knew that his luck had run out.

"Something's up with you," Dean said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "You're too quite."

"I'm just tired," Sam tried, noting the way Dean's hands clenched even harder. "It's nothing."

"Sam," Dean started, draw in a deep breath and visibly forced himself to relax, "It's not nothing. I get that you've been through a lot, that it must have sucked out loud to be stuck in that time-loop, but you gotta deal." He met Sam's eyes for a brief second and Sam felt his gut clenching. "You can't let it eat you up like this."

Sam looked away, started silently out the window at the green fields flashing by and took several deep breaths. One part of him wanted to scream at his brother that he had no idea, no fucking clue what it was like and another part wanted to just bawl his eyes out while hugging Dean close and never letting go again. He squashed both of them. "Right."

"Come on, little brother," Dean tried when Sam did not say anything else. "I'm leaving myself wide open for a chick-flick moment here! It's not like you to pass on something like that."

"Dean, just . . ." Sam started, fiddling with the zipper on his jacket, "Just drop it, ok?"

"No," Dean said and suddenly hit the breaks. The tires screeched as the car skidded across the deserted road before coming to an abrupt stop and Sam felt the rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins as his beat a hundred miles per hour.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" he screamed at his brother as he tried to will his heart to relax. He had just got his brother back and this reminded him all to well of the times he had seen Dean getting run over by a car.

"With me?" Dean yelled right back. "There's absolutely nothing wrong with me! It's you that's all messed in the head and refusing to talk. Talk to me Sam!"

"I can't!" Sam screamed and felt the treacherous emotions bubbling up to the surface again. He through the door open wide and stumbled outside, his knees hitting the ground before he leapt away from the car and from his brother. The fresh air felt good in his burning lungs and he draw in several deep breaths as he tried to calm himself down.

It only took a few seconds before he heard his brother's foot-steps behind him – shuffling and uncertain – and it broke his heart all over again. He wanted to confide in him, wanted to go back to the way things had been before, but things had changed. He had changed.

"I can't," he whispered and tried to stop the tears that were welling up in his eyes.

Dean came closer, lay a supporting hand on his shoulder and Sam wanted to hug him but it was all so wrong. _This _was all so wrong.

"Sammy, please," he said and Sam thought that, even though he had always hated that nickname, it might have been what he had missed the most. "Let me help."

"You can't," Sam whispered. "You're gone. I lost you."

Dean's hand squeezed his shoulder tighter. "I'm right here. You haven't lost me. I'm right here."

"No. No, I lost you and you were gone and I didn't know what to do. You were gone and I lost myself," Sam rambled, his thoughts a mess and his emotions going haywire.

"It's ok," Dean said. "It's over now."

A choked sob tore itself from Sam's throat. "No, it'll never be over. I lost myself and now I'm gone too."

"Sammy, look at me," Dean said and gently lifted his chin with a finger. "I'm right here, right beside you, and we'll deal with this together. It'll be alright."

Sam looked deep in to Dean's eyes and he saw how sincere he was but he also knew that it did not matter. Dean was back for now, back for a few months, and then Sam would be alone again. He lost Dean three months ago and he finally understood that it would not matter what he did or how hard he tried. He had lost his brother.

He felt the last cracks in his heart before it broke and then he forced a mask on to his face. Maybe he had lost Dean and himself – lost what they once had and who he had been – but he could fake it because in the end Dean had not lost him. He would pretend for his brother, try to be the person he had once been because Dean deserved nothing else. Dean had a few more months left and for that time Sam could try to be what he and once was.

And when his time was up it would not matter anymore.

"Yeah," he said and straightened up. He flashed Dean a brief smile before he turned back to the car. "It'll be alright."

Sam lost his brother three months ago and in the process he lost himself, but he be damned if he let Dean lose him too.

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End file.
